“Coin Locker Girl,” also known as Chinatown in Korea, is about a girl, who is found in the subway station in Incheon, taken to Chinatown to work for and ultimately be an adoptive daughter to a calculating, cut throat loan shark played by Kim Hye Soo from the Tazza fame.
This movie, directed by Han Jun Hee, was shot really well. From the cinematography standpoint, this movie does a good job in establishing the mood of the district and also the tone of the entire film. One thing a lot of Korean films have been doing is sort of glam up how Korea looks, and this looks more like an honest portrayal of the Chinatown district.
Unfortunately, as a total package I did have some issues. The first thing I noticed in this film was a very cliched portrayal of the characters. We have the loan shark boss played by Kim Hye Soo, and she gave a very one dimensional performance that I wasn’t really invested in. She was supposed to be downright frightening, but she was such a boring character that when she did do something mob bossy, I thought, “finally, something interesting!” Our main character played by Kim Go Eun, had moments where I did feel invested, and in some scenes she did a good job showing her awkwardness of being a tomboy. There was one scene in particular when she was getting her picture taken that I actually cared for her. She did a really good job in showing an innocence the character very much had. But, there were also moments where she looked like she was acting tough, and I didn’t believe it. Finally, the main character’s adoptive brother and sisters were all okay in this movie, but the writer did not flesh out the characters and none of them really had an arch.
Thankfully, the movie had better moments in the second half. There were scenes of great tension between the characters, and also, there were some unexpected turns that separated itself from a typical thriller. However, I don’t think this movie did enough to be a unique film. In the end, I felt the director missed some opportunities in setting up the characters in the beginning of the movie, and if they did do a better job with the set up, certain lines and actions in the third act would have felt more earned and clever.
As I said, there are moments in this movie I really enjoyed, and visually it looked really good, but I was a bit let down with what they could have done. Buy / Rent / Skip? I’d say RENT it.
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